French Onion Soup

French onion soup is a warm, rich, and soothing cold weather meal. It may come as a surprise but this soup doesn’t take much effort to whip up and enjoy in your own home.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

6 medium onions, cut in half and thinly sliced
57 g / 1/4 cup Mirage margarine
7 g / 1 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
4 g / 1 tsp granulated sugar
2 g / 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 or 2 sprigs each of rosemary and thyme
1.4 L / 6 cups vegetable stock
240 ml / 1 cup water
2 bay leaves
16 g / 3 tbsp flour
2 garlic cloves, minced
15 ml / 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

For the Crostini:

French baguette sliced at an angle in 1/4″ (0.6 cm) slices (depending on how many servings needed, 1 or 2 slices per bowl)
Mirage margarine for spreading
Gruyère or Swiss cheese, grated, about 1/4 cup (25 g) per bowl

Directions

For the French Onion Soup:

In a large pot, over medium heat, melt Mirage margarine until bubbling. Add sliced onions. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cook onions for 45 minutes until dark golden in colour. Once caramelized, add salt, sugar, pepper, and sprigs of rosemary and thyme. Cook for 5 minutes. Click here for our caramelized onions recipe.

Meanwhile over high heat, combine stock and water into a medium pot. Add bay leaves, heat until it comes to a simmer; about 2 minutes.

Add flour and garlic to the caramelized onions, stir continuously and cook for about a minute or until garlic is fragrant.

Add hot stock. Scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Simmer for 20 minutes. While soup is simmering, make crostini.

After 20 minutes of simmering, take off heat and discard rosemary and thyme stems, and bay leaves. Stir in balsamic vinegar.
Ladle into ceramic or oven-proof bowls.

For the Crostini:

Preheat oven to 350℉ (180℃).
Spread Mirage margarine onto the sliced baguette. Once oven is preheated place prepared bread onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake until crostini is golden brown, about 10 minutes. Set aside until ready to assemble soups. Preheat oven to broil.

Place bowls onto a baking sheet; fill with soup. Lay 1 or 2 slices of toasted bread on the surface of each bowl of soup. Divide and sprinkle the cheese amongst the bowls of soup, covering the crostini.